Last night, I began to wonder about this. The favela music began, at 3.30am, very loud, party style music. Instead of being annoyed by this, I rolled over and thought, "oh....but it´s normal for here". Then I started thinking about a conversation I had earlier in the day with a fellow worker here. She had just been to the local shop and when she opened the gate a drunk man was lying in front of it. Another worker asked "was he dead?", and both of these things seemed quite normal. Often there are drunk people lying in the street, and maybe it wouldn´t be too strange if one of them had already died. What a strange normality I have got used to.....
To answer the title question, a very good friend of ours once told us that "normal" is only a setting on a washing machine.
3 comments:
Also, is it normal to call obreiros workers in English, or are you thinking in Portuguese more than you think you are? ;) I gave a speech last Friday about our YWAM base and realized in the middle that I was calling staff people/missionaries "workers" and how funny it must have sounded to my American audience.
HMMMM
maybe I´ve been here too long, I´m not sure what i should say in English, I think you´re right, in England we would probably say "member of staff". I wonder how often I do that with other words.
We had a discussion about 'normal' only last week! It centred around me (M) being judgmental about people who are 'different' from us (behaviour, values, etc.) Using ourselves as 'normal' and judging others accordingly is shameful and wrong but can happen so easily, I find.
Does the 'normality' you speak of need to be challenged, or is it so 'normal' that it is too overwhelming to change? I guess I'm thinking also of our society here and what has become 'normal' would have been unthinkable in earlier years, yet issues go unchallenged because of our apathy and easy acceptance of things which must grieve the Lord.
Enough philosophising! Love from us both, R and M.
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